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Airbnb Weekend Shopping Picks: Items for the Kitchen Refresh

It’s kind of a love-hate thing. On the one hand, not an Airbnb project concludes without an Ikea shopping trip. Why? Because the good things from Ikea are really, really good.

On the other hand, when Ikea doesn’t get it right, items tend to fall in one of two unfortunate categories:

Looks good from about 10 feet away but every step closer brings you closer to shoddy. As in it will probably last about 8 days (if you’re lucky).

Almost great, but then the details derail it. Like particleboard (ugh!)

Fortunately, this post focuses on the positives. The truth is, like it or not, short-term rentals all operate on a restricted budget, so when it comes to designing, picking, and choosing where to splurge and where to save, Ikea can be an excellent option.

We recently took a shopping excursion to Ikea for a client and decided spontaneously to photograph some of our favorite kitchen items and write a post about them. After all, we tell our clients to get these exact things all the time, so why not spread the word.

Everyone needs some short-term rental kitchen refreshment periodically, so here’s a roundup of some of our favorite Ikea kitchen pieces (that we’ve used over and over again) on which you can’t go wrong…

The FANTASTISK – a not-so-humble paper napkin

Guests appreciate good, dependable napkins. We are big believers in having loads of them, otherwise people are tempted to wipe their hands (gasp!) elsewhere causing more clean-up for the cleaning crew.

We don’t recommend cloth napkins in Airbnbs because they are too much work to keep clean, fold, etc. Furthermore, some guests will be hesitant to use cloth ones because they suspect they aren’t clean. Paper is the way to go.

The FANTASTISK is fantastic, hence the name. It’s a hefty, large napkin in a brilliant shade of white, and looks good even in the most elegant dining environments.

The FANTASTISK Napkin is a brilliant shade of white and has a nice density, evoking a sophisticated dining experience.

And a package of 100 costs only $2.49. At this price, grab several.

For a high quality napkin, $2.49 is a great price for 100. Guests will love these.

2. The POKAL Waterglass

Timeless in design, the iconic POKAL water glass works in every type of short-term rental imaginable, from humble beach cottages to mansions on the historic register. We love them because they don’t break easily, hold a decent amount of liquid and don’t take up much shelf-space.

Read recommendations for how many water glasses to have per guest here.

The iconically designed POKAL waterglass holds both hot and cold drinks. Heck, you can even make an ice cream sundae with chocolate sauce and eat it out on the terrace in one of these beauties.

The hands-down best thing about the POKAL is the price: $.99 each.

The POKAL tall water glass is $.99 each.

3. The IVRIG Stemless Wine Glass

Stemless wine glasses are the only way to go in Airbnbs and short-term rentals (just say no to stems!). They cut down drastically on red wine spills, which can be deadly to furnishings.

The IVRIG holds a good pour, sports a fetching squared bowl making it pleasant to hold, and is durable and dishwasher safe.

The IVRIG is a stemless wine glass but it can be used for other beverages as well. Vodka soda with lemon anyone? $1.99

4. FLITIGHET Dinnerware

If you’re like me, you probably break a dish every once in a while, especially when you’re hosting a party. And that’s totally normal! Dishes get destroyed, especially when guests are on vacation, so no short-term rental owner should be spending too much money on their dish sets.

However, dishes need to look elegant and NOT cheap, so there’s the conundrum. Luckily Ikea has some nice options that are cheap AND chic.

Enter the FLITIGHET…

First of all, ignore the name (the person who came up with that title should be fired) and focus on the design and you’ll understand why time and again we specify this dinnerware in all levels of vacation rentals. You just can’t go wrong with this gorgeous white stoneware. It’s clean-lined, minimalistic, and priced oh-so-right.

The FLITIGHET dinnerware comes piecemeal or in an 18-place setting package.

5. The SMÅÄTA – otherwise known as ‘that gorgeous cutting board you stylishly top with artisanal cheese and grapes for your staging shots’ – oh yeah!

Have you ever noticed that those eye popping, immaculate kitchens you see on Instagram almost always have a hand-hewn cutting board topped with luscious looking cheeses, grapes and seeded crackers? That’s just one version. There are countless others, such as the one with wine glasses in the background or the one with freshly cut lemons with a bottle of Smirnoff. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s some eye-candy from the Floating Farmhouse in upstate New York doing a fine job of it:

Who can resist booking this place after seeing all this pizza and cheese (on the gorgeous cutting board)? Floating Farmhouse

Most chic cutting boards are obscenely expensive, as in over $100, and don’t make financial sense in an Airbnb kitchen. However, there are exceptions. Few and far between they may be, they do exist.

Like the SMÅÄTA…

Look at that sexy wood grain and how good all the food looks upon it. My mouth is already watering.

What we love about the SMÅÄTA is (1) It fits a lot of appetizers; (2) it has a gorgeous wood grain; (3) it’s hefty (no light-weights here!) and thus feels good in your hands; (4) it looks just as good as those artisanal ones that cost as much as your monthly gym membership, so you can prop it up against your kitchen backsplash to lure potential guests in your promotional photos (learn more on how to do this here); and lastly (5) it’s only $19.99.

The SMÅÄTA is made of solid wood, which is a durable natural material and gentle on your knives.

6. The Wooden Spoon – the workhorse of cooking

I can almost bet money on the fact that you don’t have enough wooden spoons in your vacation rental kitchen. Between Karen and I, we have stayed in over 500 Airbnbs and virtually none of them had enough wooden spoons. Most owners opt for plastic ones, which look bad the minute they get a chip. If wood chips, it still looks good. Embrace it!

Not all wooden spoons are created equal. You need a not-too-long, not-too-short handle for most tasks and the end of the spoon should be pointy-ish, so guests can scrap the corners of pans while cooking. The RÖRT fits the bill in all aspects.

The RÖRT has a nice sized handle and a slim, efficient spoon, so guests can scrape in the corners of pots and pans.

Grab lots of these at $1.99 each. Store a few in your owner’s closet because these tend to go missing (I guess there are too few wooden spoons in the world).

We love the light grain, nice sized handle and spoon of the RÖRT spoons. Put four in a ceramic caddie besides the stove and you have a staging shot.

7. The BLANDA MATT – or the dependable salad bowl

I don’t know why but for some reason people make more salads on vacation than they do at home. Perhaps it’s because they have more leisurely time to julienne carrots, quarter tomatoes and toast pecans. Whatever the reason, you must supply several salad bowls in different sizes.

The BLANDA MATT is a great solution. It’s inexpensive, made of bamboo (which absorbs less odors than other woods), and comes in several sizes.

The BLANDA MATT holds a decent amount of salad and makes a nice presentation.

And it’s pretty enough to encourage guests to eat their greens, so you’re performing a good deed at the same time.

If you decide to get more than one BLANDA MATT salad bowls, you can stack them.

Last but not at all least…

With over 500 hours of intensive research into what kinds of kitchen items guests seek while staying in short-term rentals, from barbecuing to baking, we’ve got the best product recommendations, with the best prices, in all categories, with convenient links to online vendors.

Staging tips are included to increase your bookings as wells as organizational suggestions for easier inventory control and improved guest experience.